5 Reasons Why Teams Underperform

July 27, 2017 - VirtualSpeech

One of the biggest weaknesses for any business is undoubtedly underperforming teams. If your team is underperforming and not being persistent on delivering constant improvement in everything they produce, your workplace environment, and arguably more important, your bottom line, are bound to suffer.

To be able to dissect and look at the core causes of an underperforming team, whether you’re in marketing, sales, or the finance department, it’s crucial to look at the five most common reasons why your team might be underperforming.

Lack Of proper training

Underperformance can often be that the integral training offered is not doing its best job in ensuring each individual member of that team is fully and adequately equipped to ensure success in various areas of their delegated responsibilities.

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Lack of proper training or training at all, can lead to lack of focus, disinterest in moving company projects forward, discrepancies in job delegation, and gaps in proper employee communication. Lack of proper training can easily be improved by performing a training audit and revising company guidelines.

Training use to be an expensive in-person process, with workshops and whole days out the office. More and more this training is moving online with powerful e-learning solutions and even immersive VR online courses.

Focusing on the wrong results

Focusing on the wrong results inevitably leads to a poor sense of direction. This can often leave team members confused in terms of where they should spend their energy the most, and where they should focus their skills on for the best outcome possible.

Measuring the wrong metrics or the wrong results can either lead the team to false positive pretenses or can downplay the effectiveness of their strategy.

Poor hiring process

The hiring process audits each candidate for fundamental skills, but it often leaves out some arguably more important skills that are priceless for a company to be able to perform successfully. Some of these skills include people skills, emotional intelligence, the ability to patiently work with others, and self-awareness.

Besides that, ensuring that the hiring process upholds company ethics is also a must. A hair follicle drug test, for example, can be an accurate and fast way to determine any improper use of chemicals by a prospect. These are certainly habits you want to avoid being present in the people that make up your team for better chances of success.

No community building

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Community building, though it can be often overlooked, is a pillar in the success of team building, growth, and achievement. Building community pertains to the hiring process in that, there need to be intangible skills present in each individual to ensure the creation of a nurturing environment.

Building community goes beyond setting up a team meeting place. It is more of a complex array of several workplace variables including but not limited to the intangible skills of each individual, the precedents set by previous projects, and the fair and understanding treatment of each team member.

No directional leadership

Without someone as the visionary at the helm, it can almost be impossible to ensure clear direction of a team. Team underperformance can often be traced back to lack of defined leadership.

When team members are at a loss as to who to turn to for direction or clarification of their mission, it can be frustrating and confusing when performing micro and macro tasks that move the company forward.

An underperforming team quickly turn into a company liability that needs the immediate attention of higher management. This then leads to loss of time and various other precious assets. Auditing the functions of each team can be a helpful first step in identifying where it’s going wrong and how to fix it.